2 Samuel 6 Devotional

Joy That Follows Holy Fear

“And David, wearing a linen ephod, danced with all his might before the LORD,”2 Samuel 6:14 (BSB)

David's first attempt to bring the ark to Jerusalem is full of music, and it ends at a threshing floor with a man dead. When the oxen stumble, Uzzah reaches out and takes hold of the ark, and God strikes him down (6:6-7). David himself is angry and afraid (6:8-9). But God had given clear instructions that the holy things were not to be touched (Numbers 4:15), and here the ark was riding on a cart. The LORD enthroned between the cherubim (6:2) is not an object to be handled carelessly.

Three months later, after the LORD blesses the household where the ark has rested, David tries again. This time he sacrifices after six steps and dances before the LORD with all his might (6:13-14). When Michal mocks him, he answers that he was celebrating before the LORD who chose him (6:21). The same holiness that struck Uzzah fills David with joy once God is approached on his own terms. In Christ, God himself has opened that way to draw near.

To think about: Do you tend to treat God as too distant to approach or too ordinary to fear, and how does this chapter hold both together?